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From Redundant To Remarkable

The British Franchise ExhibitionEventCity Manchester

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Who are RedStar?

• Founded in 2007

• Team of 10 staff

• Based in Central Manchester

• Trade predominantly in the UK

• Clients in Europe, America and Australia

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What do RedStar do today?

• Website Design & Development

• eCommerce & Multichannel

• ebay Design & Integration

• Digital Marketing

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Why go it alone?

• I’d been made redundant 6 times in 7 years

• Frustrated at the industry and people I worked for

• Thought I could run a business better than they could!

• I was extremely naive and unaware of the challenges that every day business faced – I was just a ‘technician’!

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Core values of RedStar

• I wanted to be very open and honest with clients

• I wanted to operate with high integrity

• My pricing would always be fair to the customer

“If you want RedStar to still be here helping you in six months time, then I can’t lower my rate for you.”

Me to my first client, 2007

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Setting the ball rolling• Started to ask friends and family if I could

help them

• Built up a small base of customers who started word of mouth referrals for me

• Avoided networking events like the plague – they weren’t for me!

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Important lessons learned

• I wasn’t charging enough – by a long way!

• I was too nice with my customers

• Project scope crept and crept!

• I didn’t invoice for deposits – which put me at the mercy of the customer

• It was a lifestyle business – but it was solvent… so it worked!

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Growing up (and crying for the first time!)

• I’d started to work 50/60/70 hours a week

• Employed Andy to help out – work well planned in advance

• Didn’t realise the emotional burden growth would bring

• Repeated this recruitment process 3 times before the model broke

• Too much time starting to be taken on operations, my development time was decreased

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Starting to work with multi-national brands

• First large-scale ebay project was far from perfect

• Our core principles guided us through this

• We turned the negatives to positives

• Started to realise RedStar was a business, not a job

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Starting to develop the business

• ebay request that we develop our first ever product – Velocity

• Once up and running, they give it back to us to market ourselves to further develop as a product

• Introduced us to their key accounts

• Ask us to deal with their clients on the core RedStar values

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Starting to network and raise awareness

• Decided to be brave and go network!

• Was really surprised at being told “ah yes RedStar, you’re really good but we didn’t know who you were”

• Started to wonder how do I capitalise on this for our products and services

• I was becoming an entrepreneur but I hadn’t realised it

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No more developers (yet!)

• My time was pressured, I needed help with the day to day running of RedStar

• Took on the answer to all my problems ‘Bob’

• Bob was fantastic and had a great pedigree

• Bob took over invoices, customer relations, project management

• I had more time to focus on new strategies and products for RedStar

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Building a bigger business

• Established a plan to raise £150k of capital to do this

• Took around 4-6 months in total to do this

• However, I’d abdicated, not delegated my responsibilities

• Came into work one day to find out our invoicing was dramatically decreased

The dictionary defines delegate as: "To give a task to somebody else with responsibility to act on your behalf. To give somebody else the power to act, make decisions or allocate resources on your behalf." Sounds good, right?

To abdicate, on the other hand, is simply this: "To fail to fulfill a duty or responsibility.“

The eMyth, Michael Gerber

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Disaster had struck

• We had been turning work away

• The team had no work to do

• Second investment fell through

• A lot of customers unhappy

• No cash in the bank

• Marriage ends

• Bob gets the chop

• The end is nigh?

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Back to basics

• I regained control of the finances and invoicing

• I networked hard and rebuilt customer relationships quickly

• We reinforced our core values to our customers and suppliers

• I doubled my networking efforts

• I did all the things that I should have been doing all along. Lesson learned.

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Asking for and getting investment

• It’s not about what you know, it’s who you know

• Building a plan around a new strategy and vision

• Dealing with losing complete control

• Setting the ground rules from that first conversation

Points on investment:

1. Know what the point is in taking the investment – it needs to be more than a load of money!

2. Ensure you have the ability to look for the horizon and not have your head down

3. Look for the ability to employ better technical staff to support your team

4. What support do you need as a business owner – what bits has the technician still got control of?

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Planning to make myself redundant

• Aim is now to have good highly competent staff at RedStar operationally and technically

• Not cheap, but the best people aren’t

• Success is to be redundant at RedStar within 5 years

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Advice that I’ve been given over the years…

This bit is designed for you to stop me toask questions if you are still awake

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Everyone will tell you cash is king

• It’s a naff, corny phrase – but it’s true!

• Protect your cash flow and keep on top of your creditors

• One of the main reasons profitable businesses fail (Forbes)

• Be careful with your money when you are starting up

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People buy people

• Protect the relationship YOU have with your clients as your business grows

• Network from day one – I’ve had a coffee worth £30k

• Remember the power of emotion in what you do

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Be selective with the advice you take

• Listen to the people that urge you aim higher than your sights are set and not lower

• People will tell you that you are guaranteed to fail – don’t listen!

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Adapt to change

• We are in an age of frequent change – so must be your business

• Don’t blame external changes for your failures

• If you change, make sure it’s for the better

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Stick to what you know!

• Don’t go and be a freelance brain surgeon

• Ensure you get a true idea of what your solution is worth to your customer

• Stick to what you’re exceptional at

• Do what you really enjoy

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Never underestimate the lunacy of your clients!

“You told me my work request was last gasp so you couldn’t do all of the work I asked you for my marketing campaign. You then managed

to do it all. Why did you lie to me?”

A.N. RedStar Customer

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All done – any questions?

Darren RatcliffeManaging DirectorRedStar Creative

@webdarren07970 54 57 56

Copy of slides and blog post here:

http://j.mp/redstar-remarkable

Feel free to tweet any questions:

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